POLITICS
Mr Major lines up on the right side for Europe's next battle
SIMON HEFFER
Forget Asil Nadir; for the discontented Right of the Conservative Party, this week has been the best Mr Major has had since the election. He and his rebels are in the remarkable position of unanimity on the subject of Europe. To their surprise, one of the promises he had made during the Maastricht Bill's progress through Parlia- ment was being kept. Mr Major had said he would resist socialist-style policies being imposed by the other 11 member states and, more to the point, by the bureaucracy in Brussels. He arrived at the Copenhagen Summit to find M. Delors proposing a £33 billion pan-European reflationary package of the sort that Harold Wilson and George Brown would have salivated over. Mr Major, though, took a more sober view.
'The line is absolutely clear,' a Tory whip told me. 'Maastricht is as far as the party can go. Anything beyond that simply won't wash. He knows that.' Not only does he know it but, to his great credit, he said it to his partners on Monday. Domestic political considerations are, at last, taking prece- dence over the fantasy of European union. When one's party has a majority of 18 and falling, keeping all the troops on-side becomes increasingly important .
Years of broken promises have left the Maastricht rebels sceptical about commit- ments to rein in the European Commis- sion. 'We have had the same story for years, that we have to stay in there with them in order to shape the Community,' a rebel MP said. 'But the problem is that the means of staying in there with them is giv- ing in to their desire to shape it as they see fit.' As Mrs Thatcher found, being in a minority of one, even if you are convinced you are right, hardly makes for good inter- national relations. Hitherto, notably over the unnecessary Maastricht Treaty, Mr Major has been more willing than his pre- decessor to make concessions.
The rebels will not be entirely convinced by Mr Major's new anti-Brussels toughness until he has an opportunity for deeds rather than words. The words on Monday were, however, helpful. When, in apparent con- tradiction of the events of the last nine months, certain fantasists began to argue for a fast track to a single currency, Mr Major said the notion was 'fanciful', diplo- matic language for 'barking mad'. Instead of endorsing M. Delors' Keynesianism and the French government's plea for protec- tionism, Mr Major said the Community would either have to 'compete or contract'. Preached to about the desirability of the social chapter, Mr Major merely responded with the observation that it would simply aggravate matters because 'our total labour costs are too high, our employment mar- kets are too rigid and our labour force is not as adaptable and mobile as in the USA'. His new European Affairs Minister, Mr David Heathcoat-Amory, had an impressive debut by being even less com- munautaire than his boss. 'We cannot accept these proposals as they stand,' he said of the Delors International Plan. 'We don't want to spend any money.'
This is the welcome stuff of long-overdue confrontation. In opposing the £33 billion plan, Mr Major is assaulting a key point of M. Delors' personal agenda. He has written whole books on the subject. His seminal oeuvre, Our Europe, published in 1988, is devoted to an idea of a 'new model of employment'. This 'model', as the term sug- gests, is nothing to do with markets for labour, but much to do with soviet-style regulation (executed by governments, but imposed from Brussels) to force companies and individuals into practices that would, in theory, create more opportunities for the unemployed. Trudging through the almost impenetrable prose (phrases like 'it is the maturation of the so-called Fordist forms of regulation that accounts for the depth of the crisis' may have lost something in trans- lation), one eventually comes to the heart of the argument: that the hours people work must be reduced until everybody can have his or her fair share of the work avail- able. Merit, ability, competitiveness, economies of scale, skill shortages and all the other factors of a sophisticated non- communist labour market do not enter into it. Those familiar with the main provisions not just of the social chapter, but of the working hours directives already being forced upon us, will see what progress M. Delors' doctrines have already made.
The fight to stop the socialists of Brussels — with the fall of M. Delors' friends in Paris, a last redoubt of the creed — spend- ing their way out of recession will be a long one. Once Maastricht is ratified that fight will become harder, thanks to the extension of qualified majority voting and the beefing up of the powers of bureaucrats to initiate policy and control the agendas for minis- ters' meetings. It is, though, fitting that hav- ing fought so hard to have the Treaty enforced, Mr Major should suffer the handicaps of that enforcement. It might just sharpen his appetite for challenges that lie ahead, which are greater still than M. Delors' desire for a £33 billion binge.
One of the ramifications of Maastricht is another round of inter-governmental con- ferences, scheduled to start in 1996. Their aim will be to take the 'irreversible' process of closer European union still closer to the federal goal. Mr Major, in having refer- ences to federalism eliminated at Maas- tricht, has already set himself against such developments. He must hope that in the next two-and-a-half years circumstances will force his partners to modify their plans for the 1996 IGCs. Mr Major's own rhetoric this week suggests he has learned the lessons of Black Wednesday and the Maastricht battles in the Commons. Chan- cellor Kohl's coolness about the Delors plan implies that German economic decline is now acting as a brake on idealism. From Mr Major's point of view, Germany's role is crucial. That country's economic and politi- cal strength allows it to set, and sometimes dictate, the agenda for Europe, and it looks as though there may be a rare convergence of view between Germany and Britain.
Whether there is or not, Mr Major Is undeniably alert to the requirements of his party. Many of those who have loyally accepted Maastricht want to go no further in 1996; and the Maastricht rebels, stung by charges from the likes of Mr Garel-Jones that they have no alternative plan, are assembling their own set of demands for the next IGCs. They want to use these con- ferences to undo not just the parts of Maas- tricht they dislike, but also some parts of the Single European Act that they feel go a bit far — like the rights it confers on Brus- sels to implement the social chapter by stealth, using directives. Many on the Right believe Mr Heathcoat-Amory is ready for such a fight on their behalf. 'Tristan,' says one rebel, referring to the minister's prede- cessor, 'was simply Brussels' top man in the Foreign Office. David is no such thing.' Lit- tle wonder that, sensing impending con- frontation, a movement is growing up W, seek postponement of the next round or talks of closer union until the turn of the century — by which time, perhaps, they may be completely unnecessary.
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